NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Over 25 million Kenyans use mobile money services but one expert says “cash is still king” in most of the continent.

Services such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa have taken off on a continent where the African Development Bank says only 20% of African families have bank accounts

However, Vahid Monadjem – who is the co-founder and chief executive officer of informal market payments tech firm Nomanini – says that while mobile money has been growing rapidly, cash still remains the primary mechanism for daily transactions in Africa.

Nomanini further specialises in cash-based point-of-sale platforms, building tools to facilitate cash payments and has partnerships in Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia and Mozambique.

“Mobile money, while undoubtedly achieving impressive growth across Africa, is really still in its infancy,” said Monadjem.